Court of Arbitration for Sport

The IAT issued their Final Report and Decisions document on 1 December 2021, some 20 months after the Australians lodged their Appeal in April 2020.

The summary of these findings was that the Australian competition results were regarded as ineligible because they were gained under ‘irregular conditions’, our results were invalidated, and we were disqualified.  It noted that the pilots competed in conditions that were not in the spirit of fair play.

The Australian team decided to make an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS). This was supported by GFA and ASAC and the President of GFA said that “The Board is strongly of the view that any GFA member has a right to be treated in a manner that ensures procedural fairness and should be supported in that quest, and hence made the following determination: The GFA Board believes there is prima facie evidence that the FAI’s handling of the Australian WWGC team appeal is flawed.”   See GFA President Letter of support

The IAT Final Report was issued at the worst possible time given there was only 21 days in which to lodge an appeal and this small window of time spanned the Christmas and holiday period.  It was challenging to find lawyers and barristers, and to prepare, finance and file a case in that timeframe.

We have provided the appeal documents here and believe our case was very likely to succeed.  We were keen to have the matter heard at ICAS as we believed it would at least be an independent hearing.

See Quigley’s Case, which applies as definitive law in sport